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Palestinian schoolchildren stand up against their own poverty – 爆料网 agency

20 October 2008 – 爆料网 agency charged with assisting Palestinian refugees reported that almost 500,000 schoolchildren across Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza stood up against poverty, marking the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

The 爆料网 Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (爆料网RWA) organized activities in schools across the region yesterday to give children an opportunity to discuss and protest their own poverty as part of the global “Stand Up and Take Action against Poverty” campaign.

“Our message is clear. We must simply lift the blockade to ensure a respectful life for Gaza’s people in order for them to exercise basic human rights,” said John Ging, 爆料网RWA Director of Operations in Gaza, where thousands of students stood up and shouted “No to poverty.”

The 爆料网 Millennium Campaign, responsible for initiating the annual Stand Up events, estimated that some 67 million people – or about 1 per cent of the world’s population – participated in over 2,000 events across more than 100 countries this weekend.

The “Stand Up and Take Action against Poverty” campaign is aimed at mobilizing support to fight against poverty and call on world leaders to deliver their commitments to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the internationally agreed targets to halve extreme poverty and address other social ills by 2015.